1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-pickup apparatus used in, for instance, a monitoring camera or an endoscope that has a plurality of image-pickup sections, and more particularly to an image-pickup apparatus for processing and transmitting images, picked up by a plurality of image-pickup sections, by means of a single processing system and transmission path.
2. Description of Related Art
There is a demand that, a plurality of image-pickup sections be provided in one casing in monitoring cameras and endoscopes so as to pick up a wide perspective of images. For example, Published Japanese translation No. 2005-503182 of PCT International Publication proposes a system for obtaining a wide perspective image of human cavities. In this case, wide perspective images are picked up by an endoscope having a plurality of image-pickup sections corresponding to various optical paths, and images are transmitted outside of the human body from each image-pickup section.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. H1-174178 discloses a system having a single processing circuit, into which signals output from the plurality of image-pickup sections, are accumulated and output therefrom. FIG. 23 is a block diagram of the system. Picked-up images are output as image signals by image-pickup sections 2301 and 2302. Each image signal is input into an image-signal-switching circuit 2303. The image-signal-switching circuit 2303 switches two image signals by means of a control signal output from a pulse-producing mode controlling section 2305 and a switching timing signal output from a switching-pulse-producing circuit 2304, and puts them out to a signal-processing circuit 2306.
A synchronous-signal-producing circuit 2307 puts out a synchronization signal for operating each image-pickup section in a synchronized manner and various timing signals for producing processing times for operating a switching-pulse-producing circuit 2304 and a signal-processing circuit 2306. The signal-processing circuit 2306 performs predetermined process on the input image signal. The processed image signal is stored in a video tape recorder section 2308. Also, the stored image is output as an output image from the video tape recorder section 2308 to a display apparatus which is not shown in the drawing.